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Sunday, March 07, 2004
Village bosses: We need guns
CEBU CITY -- After the death of a Leyte mayor in his barangay last Thursday, Zapatera Barangay Captain Francisco Benedicto is asking that local officials be exempted from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) gun ban.
Village chiefs, for instance, are at the frontlines of home defense since they lead tanods in running after crooks and bad elements in their barangays, he said.
But with the ban, they run the risk of being caught by authorities or being gunned down by hoodlums.
Benedicto raised his concern during Saturday's Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) general assembly and was met with applause from his fellow barangay chiefs.
ABC president Eugenio Faelnar asked for at least a week to try to ask for an exemption to the gun ban imposed for the May 10 elections.
He said, though, that he initially asked the local police but was told that approval will have to come from top brass of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
PNP Chief Hermogenes Ebdane has allowed the barangay leaders to carry licensed guns within their barangays in the performance of their duties.
Cebu City Hall issued 9 mm pistols to 35 of the city's 80 barangay captains.
But local officials will have to convince the police and the poll body that last week's attack on a town mayor while in Cebu City is enough basis for local officials to be exempted from the gun ban.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 picked up Friday night a taxi driver whose vehicle was allegedly used for the getaway of two gunmen who shot the mayor of Hindang, Leyte and his 28-year-old son.
But Nenito Bermiso, 52, of Mambaling, Cebu City, denied that he let other people use the taxi when the killing took place, saying he and his wife were at the Pag-ibig office to get a salary loan.
Police investigators, for their part, subjected drivers of Donque Taxi to a police line-up, but witnesses failed to link any of them to the attack on Mayor Roy Jumao-as, who was seeking reelection.
One witness
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7, the lead agency, will get the cooperation of the Jumao-as family only after the burial, which has yet to be set.
So far, they only have one witness because the others are still reluctant, fearing that the killers might get back at them.
The police and the NBI are looking at political and business rivalry and the involvement of the New People's Army in the killing of Jumao-as and his son Jake last Thursday.
Two men sneaked up behind the father and son as they got out of a taxi along D. Jakosalem St. and shot them around 4:45 p.m.
The Jumao-ases just came from the pier area, after the mayor arrived from Leyte to visit his family in Cebu. They were gunned down outside their apartment, a few meters from Sacred Heart Center.
Taxi drivers who may have driven the cab that the gunmen boarded after the ambush are being tracked down.
However, during a police line-up in the garage of Donque Taxi in Pooc, Talisay City, the witness failed to identify any of the drivers.
Bermiso, a driver of Ken Taxi, on the other hand, believed the NBI witness could have mistaken his white cab for another, as he insisted that he parked his unit at a vacant lot beside the Pag-ibig building at the Ayala Business Park from past 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday.
Gunmen's sketches
NBI 7 Director Reynaldo Esmeralda also showed Bermiso two new cartographic sketches of the gunmen, as described by two witnesses who were near the scene during the killing.
One was of medium build, with fair complexion, 28 to 30 years old and 5'5". The other man had fair complexion, was 30 to 32 years old, 5'2" and wore a white shirt.
But Bermiso merely shook his head and told Esmeralda that he did not know them.
Maria Isabel, Bermiso's 38-year-old wife, also said that she and her husband were indeed inside the Pag-ibig office because she applied for a salary loan that afternoon.
Bermiso, a worker of an export firm in Paknaan, Mandaue City, said her co-workers could also attest to their presence because they also applied for a Pag-ibig loan that day.
Saturday morning, the NBI 7 conducted a reenactment at the scene by parking a taxi along Benedicto St., where a 21-year-old witness spotted two men riding a taxi minutes after the ambush on D. Jakosalem St.
NBI 7 Executive Officer Nelson Bartolome said the witness identified the taxi because of its unit number 044 on its rear windshield.
Five gunshots
The witness was working on the rooftop of an establishment nearby when he heard five successive gunshots, which he thought were firecracker blasts.
Later, he saw two men, one carrying a handgun, run to the white taxi, which then sped off towards Brahman St.
The 044 Ken taxi, a white Nissan Sentra, is now kept at the NBI 7 compound in Capitol Site, Cebu City.
The NBI 7 also got the passenger manifest from Ocean Jet, a fastcraft that plies the Cebu-Hilongos, Leyte route, which Jumao-as boarded last Thursday afternoon. He was listed as the ninth passenger.
Someone could have tailed the mayor when he left Hindang town until he reached Cebu City, the NBI 7 said.
Both Esmeralda and CIDG 7 Chief Salvador Manga agreed that the NBI 7 will focus on the political angle, while the CIDG 7 will tackle the theories of business rivalry and the New People's Army's involvement in the twin murders.
The two law enforcement agencies have created a joint task force to speed up the investigation on the killing, which many believed to be politically motivated.
(March 7, 2004 issue)
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